06 October 2008 9:33 AM

Full of fake Tories with the political grasp of a Teletubby

This is Peter Hitchens' Mail on Sunday column

David Cameron’s media bodyguard closed ranks around him last week, trying to keep the truth about him from coming out. Most of the exclusive club of political journalists decided some months ago that they will now support the Tories and give Mr Cameron the uncritical adulation they all gave to Princess Tony 11 years ago.

This is Mr Cameron’s reward for wiping out the last remaining traces of proper conservatism in his party. When he says he ‘gets the modern world’, Mr Cameron is signalling to these people that he is one of them – relaxed about drugs, sexually liberal, opposed to ideas like discipline and punishment. This means that any speech he makes, however indifferent and dishonest, is praised.

Well, I was at the Tory conference in Birmingham, and I endured Mr Cameron’s allegedly superb speech – and what went before it – and I thought I might let you know what was really going on.I know a lot of you won’t like it. You harbour the illusion that a Cameron government will be significantly different from a Brown or Blair government. But you will like it even less when you find out that Mr Cameron, who plans to be elected as New Labour, will govern as New Labour did, too. Then where will you turn for help?

The warm-up act before Mr Cameron’s oration took the form of personal statements by a series of Tory candidates. First up was the comical figure of Louise Bagshawe, an author of trashy novels who sported an AIDS awareness ribbon for her appearance. No surprise there. Miss Bagshawe has the political grasp of a Teletubby and was – like so many other Cameron fans – a supporter of the Labour Party in 1996.

A couple of others, to give you the flavour of the thing, wished us ‘Happy Eid’. This was followed by two peculiar videos. One showed Shadow Cabinet members toiling on some worthily soppy community project. The other seemed to claim that the Tories – who devastated defence expenditure the last time they controlled it – were in some way on the side of the Armed Forces.

Then we had the man himself. His speech was in general a buttock-numbing affair, and nearly went badly wrong when he talked about how he ‘slept with an entrepreneur every night’.Tories don’t like these Cherie Blair-type references to things they regard as private. You could feel the discomfort in the hall, and Mr Cameron (realising he was not in fashionable London) had to scrabble hard to recover.

He also made a number of references to God – one claiming that the Almighty preferred Margaret Thatcher to Jim Callaghan – which would have jarred with any seriously religious listener. One does have to wonder if he actually understands the church services he has so assiduously attended to help his daughter into an exclusive church primary school.

Then there were the various claims that he wouldn’t put up with bad things in our society. He wouldn’t put up with examiners who gave marks for the f-word. How will he change this? Does he think he will have the power to fire the legions of examiners who think like this? Where will this power come from? He has no real plans for school reform, only the usual gimmicks.

He raged against the death of a woman, allegedly from MRSA. What is his magic cure for MRSA? He has no right to make such claims. He is raising hopes only to dash them.

He made his usual declaration of support for marriage, but combined it (as usual) with a refusal to confront the fact that the State aggressively subsidises single parenthood, and aggressively undermines marriage in immoral sex-education programmes, and that as long as it does so, marriage will die.

Oh, and he also pretended to be ‘tough’ on the European Union. But the reality is very different. Two Tory Euro-MPs who are genuinely critical of the EU last week withdrew mysteriously from a fringe meeting where they would have been speaking alongside people calling (rightly) for withdrawal from the EU. In the Tory Party you can posture about Brussels, but in the end you must support it, as Mr Cameron enthusiastically does.

You have been warned. Yes, the Tory Party is a Trojan Horse, but the soldiers concealed within it are warriors of liberalism and political correctness.

The real dummies are the people who buy itA dummy sitting on a lavatory has been shortlisted for the Turner Prize, an annual tease in which the public and the media are invited to point out that modern art is a load of rubbish. It is a load of rubbish, of course. But the clever snobs who control the art market work on the principle that if people like me don’t like it, it must be profound.

The only good thing about this is that the huge prices that are paid for all this garbage are based on nothing more than fashion, and that – if we ever do restore proper educationin our society – silly private collectors will find they are left with a load of unsellable, laughable junk.

Who'll tell the truth about our Afghan disaster?Sensation of the week was the leak of a French diplomatic memo quoting Britain’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, as saying: ‘The current situation is bad. The security situation is getting worse. So is corruption and the Government has lost all trust.’

Does anyone really doubt that this is the case? Our presence in Afghanistan is futile and doomed, and will end in failure. Quite possibly it will entangle us in an even worse undeclared war with Pakistan. Yet no major politician will call for withdrawal. Why not?

• One in five teachers now supports the return of corporal punishment. This is clearly a cry of despair from those who daily endure the howling, indisciplined chaos that now infects so many schools, but which the authorities pretend does not exist. Opponents of the cane misrepresent formal punishment as ‘hitting children’ and claim to see no difference between the violence of a playground bully and the swish of the cane. That is like saying there is no difference between a policeman wielding his truncheon against a mob of louts and those louts hurling rocks at the police. What’s more, the point of using corporal punishment against the young is that they are still open to reform. By the time a child has gone through 15 or 20 indisciplined years, never learning the fear of authority, he is almost certainly a lost cause, feral and beyond all control. Banning teachers from using the cane was easy. Banning the resulting uncontrollable young men from using knives is proving rather harder. Fancy that.

• Cherie Blair believes her appalling husband is ‘up there’ with Winston Churchill. That’s a joke. But what is serious is that Mr Blair almost certainly believes it too. All politics is a sort of mental illness. But its most virulent form is the belief that you are Churchill. The first symptom is that you start accusing your opponents of appeasement. The next is that you pick on some insignificant despot on the far side of the world, and imagine that he is Hitler. Then you become very rich.

Thank you Mr Williamson - Ayn Rand obviously knew what she was about!
With my new regime as a Reiki Healing chappie I intend to do a damn sight less of the booze and more of the reading and so I hope I get to 'The Fountainhead' as that strikes a massive chord.

You write:
'Ellsworth Toohey . .intends to rule the world, not by aggressive war but by destroying art and literature by replacing it with the second-rate and by filling people's minds with garbage so they can no longer think for themselves..'

That got me straight on to an internet piece from UK Column (google 'EU Escalates Assault On Classical Culture') that I had been meaning to read for ages - it describes exactly this process.

I think you are an atheist Michael? But don't discount the possibility that these connections we are making may have their own Good (love that word) serendipitous momentum that may suggest some benevolent universal order that can be accessed to counter the bad stuff. The wise old Greeks would think so, I believe.

That's a hard question to answer Guy without giving a complete synopsis of both books which would spoil them for those that haven't yet read them, but I'll try.

The main villain in 'The Fountainhead' is Ellsworth Toohey who intends to rule the world, not by aggressive war but by destroying art and literature by replacing it with the second-rate and by filling people's minds with garbage so they can no longer think for themselves. The individual will cease to exist. Sound familiar?

'Atlas Shrugged' is more complex and not such a good novel in my opinion - it's more of a philosophical treatise. However the main point is to make people feel guilty about everything they do then you can control them. The action takes place exclusively in the USA where laws are no longer enacted, instead there are directives. Now what does that remind you of?

On a slightly different tack, I recently recalled a quote from George Bernard Shaw's 'Androcles and the Lion', an author I wouldn't normally have much time for. This is from memory so it may not be 100% accurate. A Roman centurion is trying to persuade a group of Christians to recant their religion and says something like, "If you don't we will be forced to kill you, so, effectively, you will be committing suicide which is a mortal sin and you will go straight to hell". Not too far removed from the present don't you think?

Guy you really should read Ayn Rand. When I first read "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged" I thought to myself "This is interesting but unreal, people like this can't really exist". But they do Guy, they do.

"...is so confident that her interpretation of the Ten Commandments (a rather relaxed one) is the right one"

I don't even know what all the Ten Commandments are, so I can hardly 'interpret' them. And what I do know and say about God, I do not 'interpret' - I know.
___

By the way (just to justify you calling me 'incessant') I would like to add that I may not know the Ten Commandments but I could reduce your brother's arguments that there is no God to ... absolute zero, AND answer the questions the Church can't answer. Only I am afraid neither you, nor the Church would like God to be what He-She-It IS, but only what you would LIKE Him to be.

“Whenever I receive it now I send a message to this effect to whoever sent it to me. I am cross with people who spread such stuff without bothering to check it themselves. Like so much that circulates anonymously on the net, it is a fake, and they should have been suspicious of it, rather than vacuously passing it on. This is why I am so opposed to anonymity on the net.”

If it were not for your inability to hate, you would have made an excellent partisan, you can make a weapon out of anything. You receive inaccurate messages from identifiable people whom you then correct, but still try to use this to justify your opposition to anonymity. Outstanding!

'Guy, I just wanted to say I've read that essay you mentioned - Philip Jones, The mind controlled state. It scared the life out of me. I wondered what your thoughts were?'

Well, Vicky, I recommended it specifically because me and Mr Jones, who I have massive respect for, see eye to eye on practically everything. Don't expect everybody else to agree - but we do.

Tim Lemon asks:

'What is this global conspiracy that you keep talking about? Who is involved?'

It is best understood by the oft used analogy of the Pyramid. At the top of the pyramid are the dynastic Banking/Corporate families & their intermarried offshoots -Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Ford, Carnegie etc (examine how the Ford, Carnegie and Rockefeller 'charities' fund Socialist Utopianisms - Marxism, feminism etc - ask yourself why such wealthy people would do this?) and the various European aristocratic dynasties, again always intermarrying.

The Freemasons are an excellent example of how the Pyramid structure works from the Occultic point of view (also to be examined), and the first three (blue) degrees are a blind to fool the novice initiate - one has to ascend to the 33rd degree and above to understand the true meaning, symbolism and agenda, but you will only be granted that access and knowledge if you are a 'Player'

There are also the interlocking political groupings that further the Globalisation agenda - for example CFR, EU, UN/NATO (recently signed a secret treaty of 'co operation' - oh yeah), Bilderberg (always a Rockefeller present - a Rockefeller was also President Ford's VP post Nixon - ask yourself why?)

The current financial crisis which, Conspiracy 'Theorists' have been openly discussing for several years now (along with the intended attack on Iran) is a perfect illustration of a manufactured crisis leading to the further centralisation of power.

This is just stuff off the top of my head, as I have been looking into this for years - I strongly advise you to open your mind and plunge into this - just don't give a damn but what is the Truth - the Agenda is so blatant now, even the most insular hermit in Hermit Towm, Hermit Island must suspect that there is SOMETHING funny going on.

Although I strongly suspect that if Henry Kissinger used Satellite technology to override every single TV broadcast and gave a three hour speech in stars and stripes underpants detailing at exhaustive length from an insider's point of view the entire History of the Globalist manipulation, Conspiracy 'Theory' would still continue to be casually mocked and dismissed.

After all, we have reached the stage now where large areas of the population, for example, are accepting with bizarre indifference the fact of their drinking water being poisoned (fluoride). 'None so blind as those who will not see.'

First of all, Peter himself, admitted that it may not necessarily mean that, when he commented this:

"As for thanking God that Margaret Thatcher's Tories beat Jim Callaghan's Labour Party in the May 1979 general election, surely this implies that God played some part in it. If not, it's another casual, pointless use of the word.
One or the other, as they say, but not both"

Secondly, we can call the highest regarded English teacher in the whole world if you want and ask him if saying 'Thank God, we swapped Callaghan for Thatcher.' means 100% that I am CLAIMING that God preferred Thatcher, without any personal 'interpretation' (unless it means 100% that, it cannot mean he 'claimed').

If that teacher says it does, I bow my head. But then the whole world is screwed, because we will never understand what is true and what is not true when speaking English.

(Don't ask me how I could have believed that Cameron said that in the first place when reading the article and reading that he claimed that. I didn't question it, I simply took Peter's word for it.)

This is what TRUTH is and this is what 'claimed' and 'preferred' means in English and in any other language.

The fact that it MAY, it COULD mean that, what the speaker believed in his own mind and heart (or even that people may 'assume' it means that) is a totally different matter. (My interpretation is that he didn't actually believe anything.) But it may or it may have not. You do not interpret that and present it as fact and truth. If you want to comment on that in an article where you claim to present the 'reality', you comment in a different way, maybe asking 'Does Cameron imply that God preferred Thatcher?" That WOULD have been presenting the truth and the reality of the situation.

"I am interested that the prolix and incessant Miss Scherer, unmoved by various hints that brevity would be better.."

I can only express myself the way I can. If you don't like what I say, ignore me or ban me from writing. Or maybe - who knows - you will be such a good Christian that you will start giving me English writing lessons for free, out of Christian love?
___

"...is so confident that her interpretation of the Ten Commandments (a rather relaxed one) is the right one"

I don't even know what all the Ten Commandments are, so I can hardly 'interpret' them. And what I do know and say about God, I do not 'interpret' - I know.

(However, I somehow think - even in Bible terms - that a Christian is the one who follows CHRIST to find God. And Christ did not give people 10 Commandments, He only gave them 2 as far as I remember...and I also seem to remember that Christ didn't actually live in Mose's times or did He?)
___

"Hence my criticism of Mr Cameron. If he didn't make such a thing of his religion, I'd have no business criticising him for his casual use of the word 'God'. But he has, so I am justified."

(I thought you were a journalist, not clergy, have you changed your profession?)

You haven't criticised him for the casual use of the word 'God', you said Cameron claimed God preferred Thatcher to Callaghan. He did not claim that. And you are not justified.

Your interpretation of what it may mean when someone says what Cameron said, when he did not actually say what you claimed he said, is just that 'your interpretation'. You presented it as truth and fact. And it is neither truth, nor fact. (When I first read your article, without having read or heard his speech, I actually took your words for what they were. I thought he really claimed that, only to realize afterwords that he did not claim anything of the sort, but that you were the one claiming that he claimed).

(And you are not justified to judge him for the casual use of the word 'God' either, if you consider yourself a Christian - I seem to remember that is what Christ taught. It's God's judgement ....)
---

"It is suggested that the church should defend itself from those who wish to de-Christianise Britain"

I did not suggest that. I said the Church is the one who should represent Christians. And I repeat (although you don't like it, but maybe in the end you will understand although I start having doubts): nobody can de-Christianize anyone who doesn't want to be de-Christianized, if he/she really is a Christian. So your whole 'politics' having a role to play is absurd. Nobody can stop a Christian be a Christian.

What I cannot address from what you said is this:

"If major political parties, as a matter of political choice, believe that the Christian religion should be removed from its current position as the national religion ( as they do) , and legislate and act accordingly.."

I do not understand what you mean by this. You may be right, but I not having the necessary political information I do not know if this is a fact or again an interpretation of yours and based on what precisely? I cannot take your words for what they are anymore. So...how exactly do political parties want to remove Christianity and legislate and act accordingly?

To Mr Demetriou. Calling you a "dogmatic atheist moral liberal" is surely a statement of fact, not an expression of contempt or disgust? Of course, if you aren't any such thing, you wouldn't like to be called such a name.

But if you are ( and I think you are) how can you possibly find the label upsetting or pejorative? Believe you me, if I had chosen to bombard you with contempt, I would have gone further than offering you a factual description of what you are, and profess yourself to be.

Of course, if you find dogmatic atheist moral liberals contemptible, then we are on different ground. I don't, as it happens, and have often publicly said that I like atheists and enjoy their company, as they at least take religion seriously. I am so glad, and rather touched, that you have kept the e-mail.

Gabriela Manuela Scherer, thank you for your reply. You write:
"When society will put being kind and respectful and responsible above being clever, having money, having 'power' , things will change........."

It seems to me, ma'am, from my readings of ancient history that peoples of past civilisations, facing precisely the same problem, have reached the conclusion - and who knows after how much heart-searching? - that, human nature being as it is, most people have to be trained into the good habits you refer to, while they are still young and psychologically at their most malleable, by fear of unbearably unpalatable consequences, if they fail. The very word "society", used in its abstract modern sense, would not indeed have been understood by those peoples. For them it was people that did things, not some vague, abstract notions of 'togetherness' , onto which we can load, scapegoat-like, all the blame of our own laziness and incompetence.
It is easy enough for our rulers to keep the settled middle classes and decent law-abiding familied couples quiet by threatening them with arrest and possible imprisonment for ever more trivial pseudo-offences, for those sections of the population have got something valuable to lose and our rulers know it. The young, however, are a different matter.
The most sincere way for what you call "society" to "put being kind and respectful and responsible above being clever, having money, having 'power'" is to hold over those who would refuse to do so the threat of punishments too inconvenient or terrible for them to countenance. As far as civic life is concerned, children are adults in training and should be trained before it is too late, as indeed it may already be for some.

Vikki Boynton writes of changing fashions in the "History" industry:
"how long before the 9/11 twin towers attack is denied in case it offends anyone to think about it?"
But has anybody actually complained of any such offence? In any case surely the best response to such a situation is to make oneself, so to speak, immune to the various strains of the "History" virus.
An excellent way - if it is too late for us, it may yet not be too late for our children or grandchildren - would, I suggest, be to study some language whose fashions, literature and culture are so far removed in time from our own that no-one in the mind-progamming game has either any motivation for trying to tell us what to think about it or the wit to do it anyway.
Like anything worth doing, of course, it takes a little time and patience but I would suggest one or two of the great world languages, like Latin, ancient Greek classical Arabic and several others, provided only that they be the classical forms of the language concerned..
The literature which such classical languages spawn must surely be beyond the reach of all but the most dedicated and manically disturbed mind-bender.

I think I was talking a bit of rubbish, sorry, I had to ask a friend how it was, to make sure, because it just didn't seem logical to me what I was saying, I never had to repeat a year in school (strangely enough, as I don't seem to have learned anything) so I remembered something about the 3 subjects but not exactly. It doesn't really matter, but I don't like to say things that aren't so, that's why the following correction:

If at the end of the year one had 3 failed subjects one would repeat the year without a chance to make it right with another exam in autumn, before the new year started.

If one had one or two failed subjects, one had the chance of another exam in autumn. If one failed any one subject in autumn as well, one would repeat the year.

Behaviour was exactly how I explained, no change there. If at the end of the year you passed all subjects except behaviour, you had to automatically repeat the year.

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